Man Imprisoned 9 Years in Killing Is Freed as 2 Suspects Are Found

Published: January 17, 1993

MIAMI, Jan. 16—
A schizophrenic man served nine years in prison for a double murder that he did not commit and now, with the arrest of two new suspects, has been freed by the State of Florida.

The man, John Purvis, now 52 years old, was convicted of killing a female neighbor of his in Fort Lauderdale, as well as the woman's infant daughter, in 1983. But the conviction was based largely on confessions that his current lawyer, Steve Wisotsky, says were induced by badgering detectives.

The badgering had a particularly unsettling effect on Mr. Purvis, who has suffered from schizophrenia since childhood. Although professional definitions of the condition vary, Mr. Wisotsky said that in Mr. Purvis's case it "confuses him and impairs his understanding." Former Husband Charged

Partly at the urging of Mr. Wisotsky, a law professor at Nova University in Fort Lauderdale, the Fort Lauderdale police reopened the case in October. As a result of the renewed investigation, Paul Hamwi, a contractor in Aspen, Colo., was arrested Thursday on charges of first-degree murder, accused of hiring two professional killers to slay the woman, his former wife, with whom he had engaged in a bitter divorce.

Also arrested and charged with murder was Paul Michael Serio of Texas, one of the men whom Mr. Hamwi is accused of hiring. The other man, Robert Beckett, has been granted immunity in exchange for his confession and details of the killing, in which Susan Bolander Hamwi, 38, was stabbed with a butcher knife at her home. Left untended with her mother dead, the 18-month-old girl, Shane, died of dehydration in her crib.

On the night that Mr. Hamwi was arrested, Mr. Purvis was freed from prison. He immediately celebrated with a steak dinner, and on Friday relatives took him on a shopping spree at a mall. Then, smiling and dressed in a dark blazer and other new clothes, he addressed a news conference at the Nova University Law Center.

"It's been a long nine years," said Mr. Purvis, who described his time in prison as "pure hell." But now, he said, "I just feel excited; I'm not angry."

He said that he looked forward to driving a car again, "just seeing the world," and that he hoped to eat steak every night with "real eggs" instead of the powdered eggs that he got for breakfast while in prison.

Mr. Wisotsky said it would be premature to talk about a civil suit because he hoped that the state would voluntarily offer reparations. "This is a textbook case of how things can go wrong," he said as law students watched the news conference.